Let religion come...

"In a secular time the majority of people no longer come to religion and do not participate in religions' rituals, so religion has to go out to the people. The locus of engagement is no primarily the sacred building, where most people are not gathering, but the wider secular community in which a great deal of human activity and restlessness is taking place. In a sense, the whole world becomes the new temple, because anywhere in the world can be made potentially holy by the advent of homecoming, that is, by the recognition of presence, of something sacred at work in it. Wherever and whenever the sacred is recognised, God is glorified.

David Tacey: What is religion for? Drawing out the Sacred in Secular Times

in Reimagining God and Mission, edited by Ross Langmead, pg 47

“…rather than coming to people with fixed answers and dogmatic solutions, which serves to alienate [searchers & wayfarers] further from what they dislike and fail to understand about religion, let religion, instead, come to them with a listening heart, with an attitude of receptivity and attentiveness. This is slow and tedious work, to be sure, but it is the way that yields results that have lasting power. True power comes from within, and any ‘show of power’ from without will have an alienating effect. I’m not sure what this means at an institutional level for religion, but I think that what I have in mind is something akin to spiritual direction and counseling...”

Ibid, page 56

My thanks to the Prodigal Kiwi site for alerting me to this essay, which is well worth reading in full.